Year in and year out, there’s one constant when it comes to the radio formats ranked in the top 10 of Inside Radio/PrecisionTrak’s monthly format counts: country leads them all, and by, if you will, a country mile. But that tells only part of the story.
While, during 2024, country has stayed ahead of the second-ranked religion format — which includes religious teaching, hymns, and other related content — by as large a gap as 126, that difference has gradually slimmed down to 96 in December’s format counts. Put another way, while country has added a total of just five outlets in the past year, religion added 35, 16 of those from November to December.
Religion isn’t even the biggest gainer among the top 10 formats. Fourth-ranked contemporary Christian brought in 41 new stations in 2024, its total steadily increasing since September, adding 25 in just the fourth quarter of the year.
The only other format group displaying double-digit growth in the past year is Spanish, ranked fifth overall, with 21 new stations since January, including 13 from October to December.
News/talk, still placing third among formats with the most stations, trends in the opposite direction, having lost 16 outlets since January, although it added back nine since October. It’s one of five formats with a double-digit decline over the course of the year, led by variety — which includes stations with three or more distinct formats, either block-programmed or simultaneously — where its shedding of 36 stations pushed its rank down from sixth to seventh in 2024.
As a result, moving up from seventh to sixth is classic hits, even as it saw a net loss of 10 stations from January to December, while bringing in 11 new outlets during Q4 2024. Top 40, ranked 10th, has the distinction of losing 25 stations over a steady drop from January, while ninth-ranked sports shed 15 since the first of the year, and six from October to December.
Classic rock remains solid as a rock in eighth place, adding six stations this year, and four during October-December.
As for the three formats just below the top 10 — adult contemporary, hot AC, and alternative rock, in that order — AC adds five overall and seven in the fourth quarter, while hot AC has gradually lost 19 since January, with alternative rock down by just four outlets this year.